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Mykhaylo KOFEL
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Byzantine Catholic Church monk-in-training
Status:
Sentenced to 30 years in prison on February 10,
2005
Knives seized in investigation of
nun killing
By Ellis Berger - Miami Bureau
April 11 2001
MIAMI -- Homicide detectives say the monastic trainee
who is charged with murdering a nun at Holy Cross Academy may have been
writing a thesis on the death penalty while taking classes at Barry
University.
Two days after they arrested Mykhaylo Kofel, 18, in
the murder of Sister Michelle Lewis, police used a search warrant based
on his confession to remove items from a house that Holy Cross owns near
the university.
On a form describing what was taken into custody,
detectives list three steak knives, a bloody sheet and the central
processing unit of a personal computer.
They say in the affidavit for the warrant that the
steak knives match one found at the murder scene on the grounds at Holy
Cross.
Kofel and other monastic students taking classes at
Barry have been using the house in Miami Shores rather than making the
50-mile round trip to the academy near Kendall, a spokesman for the
academy confirmed Tuesday.
County property records show the church bought the
three-bedroom house in December.
The lead investigator, Miami-Dade County homicide
detective Arthur Nanni, says in a March 28 affidavit that Kofel
confessed to the killing and "told detectives about frustrations and
concerns that he had living at Holy Cross Academy."
In his confession, Kofel says that he was sexually
molested over four years by Abbot Father Gregory F.G. Wendt and the Rev.
Damian J.A. Gibault, the two senior clerics at Holy Cross, and verbally
abused by Sister Michelle.
Through private attorneys and other spokesmen for
Holy Cross Academy, the clerics adamantly deny Kofel's allegations of
abuse. Kofel's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Edith Georgi,
declined to comment on the search or the so-called death penalty thesis.
Sister Michelle Lewis, the victim.
Innocent plea at arraignment,
prosecutors seeking death penalty
Friday, April 6, 2001
MIAMI - Prosecutors will seek the death penalty
against the 18-year-old Byzantine Catholic Church monk-in-training
charged in the slaying last month of a nun at a church affiliated
school.
Mykhaylo Kofel, 18, brought to the Holy Cross Academy
campus four years ago from Ukraine, pleaded innocent to a two-count
grand jury indictment, charging him with first-degree murder and armed
burglary with assault or battery, at a Thursday arraignment. He was
being held without bond Friday at Miami-Dade County Jail.
At the time of his arrest March 26, however, police
said Kofel confessed to the slaying.
Kofel was arrested for the stabbing death the day
before of Sister Michelle Lewis, 39, who lived with another Byzantine
Catholic nun in a home on the campus that holds the academy, where she
taught. The campus also houses a Byzantine monastic order, where Kofel
had lived the past four years.
Meanwhile, Friday's editions of the South Florida
Sun-Sentinel reported that police also were investigating a separate
allegation of sexual battery at the private church school in the Kendall
neighborhood southwest of Miami.
Citing unnamed police sources, the newspaper reported
that that other probe began the same day Kofel was arrested, but was not
aimed at either Kofel, nor Lewis.
"We are investigating an allegation of lewd (and)
lascivious fondling of a child between Jan. 1, 1997, and Jan. 1, 1998,"
Detective Ed Munn, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade Police Department,
said when asked about the sexual abuse probe report in the Sun-Sentinel,
which is based in Fort Lauderdale.
Asked if that investigation was at Holy Cross Academy,
he said: "We can't give out address or the names involved because it's a
sex crime."
A Holy Cross spokesman denies the allegations.
"It is absolutely untrue," said Joseph Blonsky, a
Holy Cross board member. "We have already suffered two incredible blows."
Also at the arraignment, Kofel turned down an offer
by school officials to hire an attorney for him, and instead was
appointed Assistant Public Defender Edith Georgi.
Circuit Judge Manuel Crespo then granted Georgi's
motion asking that four other Ukrainian youths studying at Holy Cross to
become monks be required to get court permission first if they want to
leave the country.
Testimony by the four students, Georgi told the judge,
is "material to defendant's preparation of the case."
In an uncommonly similar move, Assistant State
Attorney Gail Levine, the prosecutor in the case announced she will
subpoena witnesses. She says church intransigence has complicated the
case,
Those developments followed a flurry of lawyer
hirings by the school's insurance carrier for each potential witness,
including top school officials, another nun and a school maintenance man.
That brought to six the number of private lawyers
involved in the case, beyond prosecution and defense attorneys.
"This is an extraordinary situation. No one really
knows how to proceed," said Blonsky.
"Everyone is in shock and confused. In an abundance
of caution, the school's insurance company has provided an attorney for
everyone. We all pray that the situation will resolve itself."
Mykhaylo Kofel, under arrest.
The "I was abused" Defense Strategy
February 10, 2005
The defense strategy to use?...Claim abuse by priests...No
proof is required, one's word is sufficient.
MIAMI (AP) -- An apprentice monk pleaded guilty
Thursday to stabbing and beating a nun to death and got 30 years in
prison in a deal with prosecutors, who offered him leniency because of
evidence he was molested by two priests.
Mykhaylo Kofel, 22, admitted killing 39-year-old
Michelle Lewis, whose nude body was found stabbed more than 90 times in
2001 in her residence at Holy Cross Academy in Miami-Dade County. Kofel
had studied at the school for five years.
Kofel, who is Ukrainian, said two priests at the
school sexually abused him while he was training with a Byzantine
Catholic monastic order.
Kofel pleaded guilty to second-degree murder...
prosecutor Gail Levine said she believed Kofel (about being abused), and
that led to the plea bargain.
Monk in training says he killed nun
Under a deal, he pleads guilty to second-degree murder in the
beating and stabbing of the nun.
February 11, 2005
MIAMI - An apprentice Byzantine Catholic monk
pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in the beating and stabbing death
of a nun in 2001 after prosecutors agreed to a reduced sentence.
Mykhaylo Kofel, 22, pleaded guilty to second-degree
murder and armed burglary and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He
was originally charged with first-degree murder and could have received
the death sentence or life in prison.
Kofel, a Ukrainian, was training with the Byzantine
Monastic Order of the Eastern Orthodox Church when he stabbed Michelle
Lewis, a 39-year-old Greek Catholic nun, more than 90 times. Her nude
body was found March 25, 2001, in her residence at the Holy Cross
Academy in western Miami-Dade County, where Kofel studied and she taught.
"I am really sorry. I want to take full
responsibility for my actions," Kofel told the court Thursday. "If I
could, I would give my life for hers. Murder is wrong no matter what."
Kofel, who was 18 when the murder occurred, told
authorities two priests at the school, Abbott Gregory Wendt and Damian
Gibault, sexually abused him. The priests say Kofel is lying, but
prosecutor Gail Levine said she believes him, which led to the plea
agreement.
She said the investigation into the abuse claims
continues.
"We have, from the very first day, denied the
allegations of Kofel," said Richard Hersch, Gibault's lawyer. Hersch
said many agencies, including the FBI, have closed their investigations
into the abuse because there was no evidence.
Holy Cross Academy has since closed.
In court Thursday, Lewis' mother, Bev Lewis-Mercury,
cried as she read a letter she wrote to Kofel. Her daughter became a nun
in 1990, giving up a well paid job as an insurance actuary.
"I want you to know where she is now. She is in
heaven," Lewis-Mercury said. "Your murder of her was so vile and brutal
I was not even allowed to see her to say goodbye."
Circuit Judge Manny Crespo denied Lewis-Mercury's
request to have Kofel locked up with photographs of the crime scene
every March 25, the murder's anniversary. Crespo said he had no
authority to make prison officials do that.
Crespo said this case was one of the most tragic he
has seen and that although Kofel seems to be more mature now than when
he killed Lewis, it remains an "intolerable act."
Crespo added that the outcome was "a very lenient
sentence, a very lenient resolution."
Kofel's attorney, assistant public defender Edith
Georgi, said her client has "accepted full responsibility for what he
did" and others should do the same.
"People who have wronged him should take
responsibility for what they have done," Georgi said.
Mykhaylo Kofel, 22, pleaded guilty to second-degree
murder.
